The 42-year-old also lived a luxury life in Birmingham in a heavily-guarded half-a-million pound pad in Moseley despite no obvious income.

In reality he was handling huge amounts of undeclared cash and defrauded the taxman by almost £500,000.

His nine-year scam was finally exposed after police raided his home and discovered plans for his own ‘Buckingham Palace’ in Attock, Pakistan, complete with library, private cinema and servant quarters.

He was arrested in May 2011 and later in court his defence portrayed him as a legitimate businessman who had earned around £400,000 over the nine-year period from debt collecting and other business interests in the UK and abroad.

But police found no evidence of a legitimate debt collecting company and a painstaking investigation proved he had actually netted well over £1m during that period without paying the required tax and National Insurance.

Khan’s jailing has sent shock waves around Birmingham’s criminal fraternity who had held him up to a near “mythical” status.

He was considered untouchable and had been implicated in numerous disputes which had lead to serious violence and even murder.

One gangland source said: “In recent years he was said to have turned religious but this man was still feared and his dealings and movements were shrouded in mystery.

“Not many people had even ever set eyes on him and he had this kind of mythical status where people only said his name in hushed tones.

“Most people referred to him simply as ‘The General’ which gave an indication of the kind of status he had in the community.

“You’d occasionally hear rumours that he’d been arrested or shot dead in Pakistan and his name would always crop up linking him to this shooting or that beating.

“A lot of people will be sighing a breath of relief now he’s locked up and it’s taken away a lot of the aura that surrounded him.”

A proceeds of crime investigation is now underway against Khan and set to be concluded next year.

It is expected the West Midlands force will seek to retrieve more than £1 million from elusive Khan, meaning the tax fraudster may indeed be living a very modest lifestyle by the time he completes his prison sentence.